A Mother's Heart Supplemental
by Batwings79
Summary: This is the M-rated supplemental chapter to 'A Mother's Heart' - it is Isobel/Richard centric and takes place mid-way through the 14th and final chapter of the story.


_**A/N: Ever wonder what doctors and nurses get up to when they're playing 'Doctors and Nurses'! ;-)**_

Isobel had left the bedroom door ajar but he still felt the need to knock before he entered. He found her standing in a dressing gown in front of a full-length mirror removing the pins from her hair. He stepped up behind her and slid his hands around her waist. She gently shook out her hair and let it fall behind her shoulders. He buried his nose in it and drank in the scent of her.

"Mmm…I love the way your hair smells of lavender," Richard murmured against her neck.

She leaned back against his chest and covered his hands with hers, one cupping her left breast while the other rested on the swell of her abdomen just below her navel. He nibbled on her neck and the top of her shoulder, he touched and caressed her gently but sensed her reserve and finally looked up to catch her eyes in the mirror.

He moved his arms to hold her across her chest. "It's alright, we don't have to do this tonight."

"If not tonight, when?" she asked wryly. She caught the puzzled look in his eye and answered, "It has been a good many years since I've been with a man, I guess I'm feeling a little intimidated."

"Intimidated? I don't understand."

"I think it is the intensity with which you desire me," she said plainly. "You've made it very clear that you find me attractive and that I arouse you on many levels but I don't think that I see what you see."

"What I _see_," he began, placing his hands on her shoulders and looking at her in the mirror, "is a tall, statuesque woman with beautiful blond hair that smells of lavender…and warm brown eyes that light up like the sun when something amuses her." He kissed her lightly on the temple near the corner of her eye. "She has lips that entice me to kiss them whenever the opportunity arises." He reached up and turned her head so that he could place a chaste kiss upon her lips.

"The skin on her neck and shoulders is so soft and touchable and I've recently discovered a very special spot on the top of her collarbone that seems to bring her great pleasure," he paused to kiss that special spot and was rewarded with a tremble and a soft moan when he pressed against it with his tongue.

"Her breasts have comforted a husband and nursed a son and _my_ favorite spot is here," he smiled as he let his right hand return to the swell of her lower abdomen. "It is the place where she carried her son all those years ago and it is her love for her son that so significantly defines the warm and wonderful woman that she is now."

"Oh, Richard," she murmured as she turned in his arms and captured his mouth in a searing kiss. Her arms went around his neck as she pressed herself to his chest. He turned them and began to back her towards the bed as his own hands loosened the belt of her dressing gown and slid inside along her hips and around to hold her bare bottom. He reached up and pushed the gown off her shoulders just as the back of her knees hit the bed causing her to sit down abruptly. They both laughed at the sudden end to his kiss and his embrace.

He watched from above as she reached out to remove his belt and undo the fastenings of his trousers. She tugged at the waistband of his undershorts to free his erection before pushing both garments down his legs to bunch at his ankles. He stepped out of the pile of fabric and stood before her as she tried to smother an attack of laughter.

"And what is it you find so amusing?" he asked with mock sternness.

"You!" she exclaimed dissolving into a fit of the giggles. "Standing there, completely aroused in nothing but your undershirt and your socks!"

"Did I mention that I also adore the sound of your laughter?" he asked with a grin as he bent to slide his socks off.

He was pulling his undershirt over his head when he felt her hand and her mouth engulf him simultaneously, causing him to go weak in the knees. He balanced himself by placing his hands on her shoulders as she massaged him with her tongue and the palm of her hand. He should have known that Isobel Crawley was not a prude. Both her knowledge of human anatomy and her healing touch should have told him that she would be more than practiced at inducing the feelings and sensations that threatened to overwhelm him at this very moment.

"Is..Isobel," he stuttered as his body shuddered involuntarily. He reached down to raise her chin as he said, "I am thoroughly enjoying what you are doing for me but there are other _activities_ that I would like to engage in _with_ you…and _for_ you…before you have me completely undone tonight!" He leaned down to kiss her and then nudged her to scoot to the middle of the bed.

He cuddled up behind her and slid one hand and arm under her neck to cradle her head while he stroked her back with the other. He used his sense of touch and taste to explore her body while hoping to instill a sense of trust. He started at the nape of her neck and slowly massaged each of her vertebrae in turn. He used his fingertips first to ease the muscles and finished with his tongue as he kissed his way down to her lower lumbar region.

It had been awhile since she'd been touched by a man especially one as talented as Dr. Richard Clarkson seemed to be. What she loved best about him was his ability to make her laugh. She also appreciated his sensitivity to her needs both emotional and physical. Right now she was reveling in the physical sensations that he was bringing out in her. She liked the way his hands stroked her muscles followed by his mustache tickling the skin along her spine.

He had finally reached the spot where her spine curved into her bottom. His hands massaged her bottom for a few moments before sliding around to stroke the fronts of her thighs and pull her back against him. As his fingers drew across the crease in her thigh he was able to feel the pulse in her femoral artery, strong and steady. He shifted slightly and she could feel his arousal pressing against her bottom and she wiggled just a bit in her excitement. He smiled to himself as he felt her pulse increase slightly beneath his fingertips. She waited in anticipation of his hands beginning to massage and explore her center which had begun to tingle in response to his ministrations. She turned onto her back and looked down in surprise as he moved to the foot of the bed and began to massage the soles of her feet.

He could tell by her reaction that she had been expecting something different but that was exactly what he wanted…to be different…different from any man she had ever been with, including Reginald. It was not because he was jealous but that he didn't want to live…or love…in Reginald's shadow.

He ran his finger along the length of her foot and was pleased to find that she was a bit ticklish on the bottoms of her feet. That likely meant that if he kissed her just there…on the inside of her arch and ran his tongue along the line where it turned towards her ankle…he was pleased to hear her moan and feel her body react as her hips rolled and pulled on her leg just a bit where he held onto her foot. Without thinking about it, he grasped her other foot and rubbed his thumb across the top to feel for her dorsalis pedis pulse. Strong and steady and again he could feel her heart race when he tickled her arch with his tongue.

Isobel had no idea that her feet were so sensitive and that something as simple as his touch could send those darts of pleasure straight to her core. She also recognized the 'healer' in him. No matter what he was doing, he always kept one hand in constant contact so that she would know he was there. It made her feel safe and secure with him and so she was able to relax and completely enjoy what he was doing for her.

From his position at her feet, he could appreciate the grace and beauty of her long, shapely legs. He was anxious to find out if she harbored any other highly sensitive spots perhaps behind her knee or at the crease of her thigh. Grasping her left knee, he found himself searching and realized what he had been doing…moving from pulse point to pulse point so that he could gauge her reaction to his attentions. The popliteal pulse behind the knee was always difficult to locate and with her increasingly erratic movements it would likely be impossible so he opted for a more traditional check of his theory, observation of the patient's reactions. He smiled as his tongue behind her knees elicited a giggle and not a moan so he concluded that her knees were ticklish but _not_ the location of a sensitive area that he could exploit in terms of heightening her arousal.

He moved on to kiss and nibble his way up her thighs exerting a certain amount of control not to just bury himself at her center. He was about to move past her hip to lave her navel with his tongue when his thumb brushed the inside of her right hipbone causing her hips to turn towards him and he looked up to see her biting her lower lip, trying but failing to hold back a soft moan. He smiled to himself as he returned to her hip to gently suckle the skin, searching for the most sensitive spot.

Again, he was rewarded with the sounds of her moaning his name as he felt her hands reaching down to get his attention. He stretched up to lie beside her as his hand wandered up her ribcage to gently massage her breast. She reached up to run her fingers through the hair behind his ear and drew him down for an achingly slow kiss. Soon his own control began to falter as she finally pulled away and whispered in his ear, "If you don't make love to me right this instant, I will be forced to take matters into my own hands."

A wicked grin spread across his face as he pretended to have to think twice about it. "Hmmm…that could be very…ungh, Isobel!" he gasped as she took hold of his manhood. He could tell by the way she moved against his body and the frantic rhythm of her tongue when she pulled him in for another passionate kiss that she was more than ready for him. He quickly moved over her as she guided him to her entrance and he sheathed himself in her depths in a single stroke.

Her reaction was immediate, he could feel the first waves of her climax begin at her center and spread out until her entire body trembled beneath him. He hadn't realized how his own excitement had grown as he slowly explored her body until he felt himself follow her over the edge just a few strokes later.

"Isobel," he whispered lovingly in her ear as he raised himself up on his elbows to look into her eyes. Her face was still flushed and her breathing was a bit ragged but she smiled up at him and stroked the skin behind his ear. He lay down beside her to rest his head on her chest and he found his hand automatically moving to cover the swell of her lower abdomen.

"Richard," she said softly as she stroked the back of his neck.

"Yes, dear?"

"Is that really your favorite part of my body?" she asked.

"Does that bother you?" he worried that she did not like attention drawn to that part of her body or worse, that it somehow reminded her of Reginald.

"No…I don't think that it does," she said slowly.

Her response did nothing to reassure him. He did not want to ask the next question but felt that they needed to clear the air, "I hope that it is not causing you any anxiety regarding you feelings for Reginald."

She shifted in the bed so that they could face each other and she looked directly into his eyes as she said, "Richard, I cannot deny that I loved Reginald with every fiber of my being…but he is no longer here and you are. My heart is rejoicing that I have developed feelings for you that have now turned to love and I hope that you will return those feelings." He quickly leaned in to kiss her and reassure her that he did indeed return those feelings.

She smiled at his response and continued, "I enjoyed the ways that Reginald would make love to me but please rest assured that he _never _made love to me the way that you did tonight. You are unique and there is very little that you do or say that reminds me of him."

"Isobel, I'm so sorry," he said as he pulled her close and kissed her forehead. "I really don't think that I am jealous of Reginald but I have to admit that I wondered whether I would have to live in his shadow so to speak."

Isobel smiled and leaned in to kiss him. "Reginald was not as sensitive to touch as you are. He knew about my collarbone but never was patient enough to explore and find the spot that you found on my right hip."

His hand slid around her hip as he nuzzled her neck and whispered in her ear, "There are a lot more places I need to explore."

Isobel pushed him onto his back and rose up to sit astride his hips trapping his growing arousal beneath her. "Don't think that I didn't notice what you were up to," she said with a broad smile. "I think perhaps it is time to find out if the good doctor has any sensitive spots beginning with the temporal pulse," she said seductively as she leaned over to kiss his temple and press her tongue against the skin just at the point where his ear and temple join. She was pleased to feel the surge in his pulse as she shifted her hips and felt his manhood twitch beneath her.

He lay back and decided that this might be one time where letting her take the lead could be very enjoyable for _both_ of them.

_**A/N2: Hope you enjoyed this little peek into Isobel's and Richard's new relationship. Let me know if you approve or do I have to dismantle this ship in part three of the series. ;-)**_

_**Now would also be the time to return to Chapter 14 and finish part two of the series! LOL!**_


End file.
